The present invention relates to a coating booth for film and more particularly a booth for forming an overcoating layer on a marking film.
In recent years, various marking films are stuck to the bodies of vehicles such as automobiles and passenger cars for the purpose of advertising, etc.
Marking films comprise a base film made of polyvinyl chloride, etc. on which letters or images are printed on a high-speed printer, and the printed base film is laminated with a transparent cover film.
Because the cover film is adhered to the base film via a transparent adhesive, it sometimes separates from the base film due to deterioration of the adhesive with time. Where a cover film made of a fluorine resin having excellent weatherability is used seeking a high quality finish, the production cost greatly rises, and the marking film becomes thick, which is inconvenient for sticking to a car body, etc.
As an approach to solve these problems, it has been attempted to form an overcoating film on the printed base film placed on a horizontal table with an inexpensive transparent coating by ink jet printing or screen printing. These methods are not practical, however, because a high-quality finish cannot be secured due to appearance of scanning lines on the overcoating layer or a failure to achieve a sufficient coating thickness.
Therefore, where an overcoating layer is formed of a transparent coating, the printed base film is disposed vertically, and the coating is sprayed thereon by a skilled worker with a spray gun. Such a coating method has very poor productivity and incurs high cost.
Under these circumstances, a coating booth for film has been demanded, in which an overcoating layer can be provided on a printed base film with each at good productivity to provide a marking film having a high-quality finish and satisfactory weatherability.
An object of the present invention is to provide a convenient coating booth for making a weatherable high-quality marking film at low cost.
As a result of extensive studies, the present inventor has found that the above object is accomplished by a coating booth for film having a table on which a film to be coated is mounted, an air intake which is provided in the ceiling of the booth and through which open air is cleaned and introduced into the inside of the booth, and an exhaust system which sucks up the introduced air from the side walls of the table to make a substantially horizontal air flow inside the table and discharges the air outside, wherein the table has a substantially horizontal tabletop with a plurality of suction holes so that a film mounted thereon are held by suction by the action of the air flow inside the table.